Meanwhile, the question I think I'll be exploring for my main item today is this: How much is Obama abandoning economic populism in his quest not to upset Republicans and Wall Street? And is that serving him well? Your thoughts in comments would be welcome.

UPDATE AT 1:20

Here's some commentary on the stimulus vote:

Blogger Hilzoy writes: “There are good reasons to try for bipartisan support regardless of how likely you think you are to succeed.

“If you do succeed, then both parties have some ownership of the stimulus bill, neither will be as eager to politicize it, and it will be harder for either to use it to beat up the other. This is good. If you try hard, and publicly, to attract Republican support, but fail, then Republicans look like intransigent ideologues who would rather try to score political points than actually deal with the serious problems the country faces. You, by contrast, look reasonable: you tried to reach out, but your efforts were rejected.”

The
New York Times editorial board writes: “The signature achievement of the $819 billion stimulus and recovery bill, passed on Wednesday by the House, is that it directs most of its resources where they would do the most good to stimulate the economy….

“President Obama and the lawmakers who wrote the bill are to be commended for not letting size distort the substance. Contrary to the claims of Republican opponents that the bill indiscriminately rains money down, the amounts and categories of spending have, for the most part, been calculated carefully and chosen well.”

E.J. Dionne Jr. writes in his Washington Post opinion column that the main battle over how to improve the economy is now taking place among Democrats. “One camp favors using the stimulus to focus on the needs of Americans of modest means,” while another “sees the bills as shorting investments for infrastructure: roads, bridges and particularly mass transit,” and “environmentalists have pushed for large investments in clean energy and conservation.”

What about the GOP? “Because of their philosophical leanings, most Republicans have chosen to make themselves irrelevant to the debate,” Dionne writes. “They prefer to insist on more tax cuts for the well-off and for business, ignoring the reality that all but the most ideological economists dismiss such measures as having limited value in boosting the economy.”